Kevin Hochman rises before most of the restaurant industry stirs. The president and CEO of Brinker International, parent to Chili’s Grill & Bar, wakes between 5 and 6 a.m. He checks emails. Then he heads out for a 3.25-mile run.
That run doubles as his strategy session. Ideas flow. Problems clarify. “Between running and walking the dog, you get a lot of ideas on what the things we should be working on are,” Hochman told Business Insider. “It typically generates a lot of ideas when it comes to thinking about the business.”
The dog walk follows. Simple. Consistent. Effective. By 8:30 a.m. he reaches Brinker’s Dallas headquarters. Meetings fill the day. Restaurant operators. Corporate staff. Investors. Yet the real pulse of the company comes from the field.
Hochman runs listening sessions inside Chili’s locations. He asks team members what excites them. He asks what they would change. Their answers reshape operations. One adjustment shifted inventory counts from weekly to monthly. It saved hours. Reduced frustration. “A huge amount of the changes that we’ve made at Chili’s have come from sessions like those,” he said in the same Business Insider profile.
This habit of seeking input from the front lines anchors his leadership. He visits restaurants often. He convenes general managers. He listens. Then he acts. Physical assets improve. Menus tighten. Service quickens. Atmosphere brightens. “We lead from the restaurants and back up into the home office,” Hochman explained to Nation’s Restaurant News.
The results speak. Chili’s posted 20 straight quarters of same-store sales growth. The latest quarter delivered 4% growth atop a prior 31% surge. Sales hit $4.5 billion last year, up 15%. The chain now ranks as the No. 2 casual dining brand by sales in the U.S. It holds the top spot for traffic and for alcohol sales. “We are firing on all cylinders and it starts with our team members taking care of our guests,” Hochman told Yahoo Finance after the latest earnings.
But four years ago the picture looked different. Hochman joined Brinker in 2022 as a proven turnaround leader. He had revived Old Spice at Procter & Gamble. He drove innovation at KFC with rotating celebrity spokespeople. At Chili’s he created a mock magazine cover early on. The headline read “Chili’s is back, baby.” Three years later the vision matched reality.
He set a clear direction. “When I was at Procter and Gamble, they teach leadership that includes envisioning where you want to go,” he shared with Nation’s Restaurant News. “If I don’t create a vision for our leaders to know where we’re headed, it’s hard to execute anything.”
Execution demanded focus on basics. Great food. Consistent service. Hospitality. A fun, fresh environment. “That sounds easy, but easy is hard,” Hochman noted. “That’s why so many have struggled to get it done. The key is making sure we’re laser focused. We are going to take every distraction and put it aside.”
Distractions fell away. The menu simplified. Labor demands eased. Service sped up. Restaurants grew cleaner. Roof repairs happened. Those unglamorous fixes mattered. “If I fix 500 roofs from leaking, there is no clear payback, but if you don’t do those things, how do you have a concept that’s growing?” he asked.
Marketing entered only after operations stabilized. The formula proved straightforward. “It’s two things,” Hochman said in a recent Business Insider interview. “We have a saying here: marketing brings them in, and ops brings them back.”
Marketing excited. Viral moments followed. Mozzarella sticks showed an epic cheese pull. The Triple Dipper appetizer combo drove 14% of sales at one point. The $10.99 3-For-Me deal delivered a big crispy chicken sandwich, bottomless fries, chips and salsa, and drinks. Research showed the sandwich ran 80% larger than leading fast-food rivals. Sales of sandwiches jumped 161%.
Operations delivered on the promise. Food matched the ads. Fries arrived hot and seasoned. Service stayed quick. “When you see the burger or chicken sandwich for $10.99 on the screen, and the fries are crisp and hot and steaming with seasoning, and then you come in, and it looks exactly like that… you’re like, ‘Wow, that was a great value. I’m going to come back,’” Hochman told Business Insider.
He contrasts that with competitors. A lower price means little if the product disappoints. “If you go to a competitor and the same burger is a dollar less than ours, but it doesn’t look like it did in the ad, it doesn’t matter whether it was a dollar less. In my mind, that’s money I should have spent somewhere else.”
Small operational tweaks compounded. A new seasoning shaker with larger holes cut time on fries. iPads improved order accuracy and speed. These details rarely make headlines. They build the edge. “These are the things nobody talks about. But the everyday stuff, that makes us better and better, that’s kind of been our secret sauce,” Hochman said.
His morning routine feeds this attention to detail. The run clears his head. The dog walk sparks connections. Ideas generated at dawn shape decisions made later in test kitchens. There the team tastes fajita presentations. They explore dessert innovations. They debate how to elevate the familiar.
Afternoons and evenings often involve travel. Hochman turns flights into focused work blocks, according to recent social media clips shared by restaurant news outlets. He listens to podcasts during runs. He stays close to the consumer pulse without chasing every trend. Drone delivery? Not a priority. In-restaurant experience comes first.
The approach resonates in a tough market. Consumer sentiment hovered near lows earlier this year. Yet Chili’s converted lapsed guests into regulars through value and consistency. “We just keep rolling with the food service and atmosphere, the fundamentals of casual dining,” Hochman said on Yahoo Finance. “Combine that with ‘extreme value that’s working in the marketplace,’ and Chili’s has converted lapsed guests into repeat ones.”
His background prepared him well. Time at Procter & Gamble instilled discipline in brand building. Work at Yum Brands sharpened restaurant operations knowledge. Both emphasized vision paired with execution. Both rewarded focus on people closest to the product.
That people focus shows inside Chili’s today. More than 70,000 employees across over 1,000 locations in 49 states. Hochman wants them heard. He wants managers equipped. He includes leaders from every function in the story. “I don’t know how to source ground beef or make an ad or lead policies,” he acknowledged. “For turnarounds, people have to have a source of truth about what they can and can’t do. You want them to know ‘here’s what I can do to be part of story.’”
The story continues to build. Brinker raised its fiscal 2026 earnings guidance after strong results. Stock trades reflect confidence. Analysts point to the sustained growth streak as rare in casual dining.
Hochman, named 2025 Restaurant Leader of the Year by industry peers, shows little interest in declaring victory. The morning alarm still sounds early. The miles still accumulate. The questions to restaurant teams continue. Ideas keep coming. One run at a time. One improvement at a time. The turnaround that began with a mock magazine cover now fills real dining rooms with guests who return.
And the dog? It gets its walk. The CEO gets his clarity. The business gets another day of focused execution. In an industry where basics often slip, Hochman’s routine keeps them front and center.
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